Erosion
by GirlInTheCastle
Summary: It's got to be hard for Thalia, watching her friends grow up without her.


It wasn't until Jason got his driver's license that it hit her.

Her little brother was older than she was.

Annabeth and Percy were going to college. _College_. He was studying marine biology (surprise, surprise) and she was taking architecture as well as minoring in a couple other things. They were going to get their diplomas. Graduate. Settle down. Get married. Have kids.

Jason, and Piper, and the rest of the Seven, and all the campers that survived, both Greek and Roman…they were going to live their lives similarly.

And she was going to have to watch it all.

She'd thought she'd understood what she was signing up for when she became a Hunter, but for the first time, she wanted out.

And not just the Hunters.

She wanted the world to stop with her. She wanted everything to stay exactly how it was, everyone to stay exactly the same age for the rest of forever.

Since that wasn't going to happen, she at least needed a family friend.

But how could any of the gods sympathize with her problem?

They were twins. A boy and a girl.

The first time she saw them, she'd thought Percy and Annabeth had switched genders and gone back in time.

The boy, Luke Taylor Jackson, had piercing grey eyes and the slightest tuft of curly blond hair.

Evanlyn Thalia Jackson had her father's unfortunate cowlick and beautiful green eyes the color of the ocean on a sunny day.

She almost cried when she heard their names.

Frank and Hazel's little boy was adorable. He'd gotten his mother's hair and eyes and his father's gift. Donovan Joshua Zhang had almost given her a heart attack when he'd turned into a bear cub crawling across the rug.

Roxie June Valdez was only three weeks old and already her father had corrupted her. She laughed at all his jokes and enjoyed sitting in the middle of campfires. She had her mother's gift for weaving, though, thank the gods. If she ever visited again, she was sure to bring a lot of yarn.

It was only when Heidi Columba Grace was born that she cried. Jason and Piper had named her godmother. She'd inherited her mother's beauty and her father's electric blue eyes. The day she was born, both Zeus and Aphrodite snuck into the delivery room to see her.

She and the Hunters had just killed a drakon terrorizing Texas when her phone rang, making her and the Hunters freeze.

Annabeth's number.

Something was wrong.

She fumbled for the buttons and listened for a minute that lasted an eternity. She hung up, and the world fell out from under her.

Percy.

Alecto.

Saved a camper's life.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream and she knew the Hunters were looking at her in concern but it didn't matter because Kelp Head was gone and he wasn't ever

going to come back.

She didn't want to go to the funeral. She didn't want to accept it and she didn't want to see Camp Half-Blood or his shroud or Annabeth's grey hair.

She wants Annabeth to be a Hunter and Percy to have accepted immortality because there's only two more left and then her family will have gone.

She goes anyway.

After all, Annabeth is her little sister and sisters watch out for each other.

Evanlyn's graduation ceremony goes by in a haze of blue hats and speeches. Next to her, Piper is hugging Annabeth, both looking a little teary, Leo is spinning a laughing Calypso around, Frank and Hazel are cheering their loudest, and Jason is hugging her, and all she can think of is that she must look like his granddaughter.

Annoying little brother he is, he doesn't let go.

Heidi has a boyfriend, and when she first meets the guy, it takes all her willpower not to punch him in the face. He pulls a face when she explains she's a family friend (even though she's dying to tell him she's really Jason's older sister) and she comes very close to impaling him when he asks Heidi in a stage-whisper if she used to babysit her.

He leaves with Heidi to go out for dinner, and even Piper looks pained. Jason frowns at his wife.

"Have we really gotten that old?"

"We, Sparky? I think you might want to change your pronoun." Piper teases, kissing him on the cheek.

The feeling of loneliness is nearly overwhelming, and she doesn't think she's ever missed Luke more than right now.

Why can't she hit the play button on her life?

She's almost moving on from the loss of Percy when the Fates cut the strings once more – Frank and Hazel, killed in a car accident, leaving Donovan parentless and alone.

It's almost a mercy, she thinks. At least they never had to grieve for the other.

Donovan is in his senior year of college, sure, and old enough to take care of himself, and she knows that she's acting soft and comforting and not the kick-butt daughter of Zeus that she was during the Titan War, but she's the one who helps him get his apartment and the one who forces Leo to fix his car and the one who pep-talks him in leases and whatnot.

Annabeth would really do a better job than she ever could, but she wants to keep her mind off the fact that Annabeth is losing her memory and she'll probably have to go into a nursing home, and Leo and Calypso are busy getting Roxie a job, and Jason has to use a walker and Evanlyn is getting married next summer and there will be not a father to walk her up the aisle.

It feels like her life is a movie and she is watching from inside her head.

Some nights as she's resting in her silver tent in the middle of nowhere, she pulls out the photos of herself and her friends when they looked the same age.

These are the times when she feels so vulnerable and alone, and she realizes she's lost and wants all she can never have, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't get a grip and turn all the sadness into one big memory.

Where is Luke?

She can't have missed him. She knows him too well. Doesn't she?

He must have come back. Luke wasn't the type to hang around partying.

There is a hole cut inside of her, a hole that was where her family used to be – not the new one she'd found, but the old trio of Annabeth and Luke and she, the trio of young homeless demigods trying to survive.

Years pass by.

Has she missed him? Has he already finished?

Maybe she doesn't know him as well as she thought. He joined Kronos, _became_ Kronos, after all.

Where is Luke?

Next is Leo. Died peacefully in his sleep, and Calypso a few weeks later, happy to be with her husband for the rest of eternity.

She feels jealous, knowing that when she dies, there will be no Luke to welcome her – he'll be at the Isles of the Blest, and she's not sure she can make it through another two lifetimes.

Jason, her baby brother –

Then Piper.

Then, and almost worst of all, Annabeth.

But not the Annabeth she remembers – this is an Annabeth who no longer knows Percy's birthday or their first kiss or Camp Half-Blood or even her best friend.

She is Alone, with a capital A.

Time.

It doesn't matter to her anymore.

How could it, when it is endless?

The weeks blur into months, and the months blur into years, and then it's her bicentennial and she's wondering where the time could have possibly gone.

She must have missed him. She would have recognized him, even if he didn't recognize her.

One day, Artemis takes her aside, which reminds her of her brother, which reminds her of twins, which reminds her of Luke and Evanlyn, which reminds her of…

No.

She told herself she wouldn't think about _them_.

Artemis tells her she's doing an excellent job, and the Hunters' numbers are growing, and she's pleased with her work. But then the goddess hesitates, and she knows there's something else too.

"You miss them, don't you?" Artemis asks, and she's wondering how the goddess could possibly know because she's kept her armor on and she's been strong even though she feels like she's eroding inside.

Then she realizes that was a stupid thought, because _duh_ , all her best friends are dead.

And then Artemis asks her if she's ready, ready to rest, and she says that she can end this, once and for all.

The breath feels like it's been vacuumed from her lungs, leaving her lightheaded and dizzy. How can she possibly say no? She thinks of Elysium and its perfect houses and old friends and endless parties, pointedly avoiding thinking about _them_.

But then, for the first time since the Fates cut that stupid electric blue yarn, Percy slips through her armor – stupid, stubborn, unpredictable Percy.

A memory surfaces in her brain.

The two of them are sitting by the canoe lake and he's looking at her with an easy smile, for once not the smirk that always makes her want to punch him somewhere private.

"I was thinking the other day," he starts.

"Really?" she says sarcastically, raising her eyebrows.

He ignores her completely.

"When I die, I want it to be for a reason, you know? For a purpose. That's why suicidal people make me so mad. How could anyone just leave their family like that?"

At this point, she has to smile. Percy really is a decent person – which won't stop him from infuriating her, and vice versa –

"I mean, I know sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but there's always someone who cares." He grins at her, a hint of mischief in those sea-green eyes.

"Gods, I'm getting sentimental, aren't I?" He pulls out a can of pink spray paint. "Want to go prank the Stolls?"

She's sucked back into the present and for the first time in a really long time, she is certain about what she's going to do. She knows someone cares.

She's not going to ask Artemis to take away her immortality. What purpose would that serve except for her own reasons?

A firm "No, my lady" and a bright smile are all she gives Artemis, and then she bows respectfully, turns away, and heads back to the camp. When she thinks to look back, Artemis is gone, but the next week the hunting is better than normal and the stars suddenly seem not only to shine, but to live –

She grants herself a rueful smile. How ironic is it that the very people she's been trying so hard to forget are the very people she needed most to remember.

Exactly a month and a day later, her string is cut during a very stressful fight involving some extremely annoyed hydra heads and a donut shop.

She steps into Elysium and smells the barbeque roasting and sees the perfect, mismatched houses, and hears the laughter and shouts of her old friends. She is timid – why? she is a daughter of Zeus, she should not be timid – but feels so, so happy, because she has waited so long for this moment.

Her happiness turns bittersweet as she looks far, far out into the ocean, where the Isles of the Blest are serene and still, where Luke surely is.

And then – and then –

"Thalia."

She turns. He is smiling at her. For a moment, she is speechless. Has he really waited? For her? After all these endless years?

He holds out his hand, and she takes it, feeling his warm calloused fingers underneath her own. Perhaps this is not the end of the road, after all.

 **A/N: Thank you so much for reading! And I forgot to put a disclaimer at the top, so here's one now: everything you recognized belongs to**

 **Rick Riordan. -Cara**


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